EL SEGUNDO, CA - February 28, 2008 - Following opening remarks made during the General Session at the 2008 Destination PlayStation retailer event in Scottsdale AZ, Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. confirmed several new initiatives related to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, including a North American street date, online multiplayer, and pre-sell program.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final chapter in the saga of Solid Snake which sends him around the world in pursuit of his arch nemesis, Liquid Ocelot. Armed with new gadgets and abilities, Solid Snake must shift the tides of war into his favor, using the chaos of the battlefield to infiltrate deep into enemy territory. In his globetrotting final mission, Snake must sneak deep into enemy locations in the Middle East, South America, and other corners of the Earth to foil Liquid Ocelot's plans for total world domination.

Street Date

Opening remarks revealed that the final chapter in the saga of super spy Solid Snake is expected to arrive in stores in North America on Thursday June 12th, 2008. "Blockbuster events and premieres are a tradition of the summer," said Kazumi Kitaue, Konami Digital Entertainment Inc. Chairman and CEO. "We anticipate that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots fits that bill perfectly, and consumers will be waiting in line to get their copy of the game just like it's a hit Hollywood movie."

Metal Gear Online Starter Pack

It was also confirmed today that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will launch with the Metal Gear Online "Starter Pack" supporting online gameplay. In addition to the single player experience, gamers will also be able to take the action online with up to 16 players and battle it out using the latest weapons and stealth techniques.

Pre-Sell Program

Beginning April 2008, consumers that pre-order Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will receive the Metal Gear Saga 2.0 DVD, containing a Prologue that recaps the Metal Gear franchise, a 20th Anniversary retrospective, character bios for Big Boss, Liquid Snake, Solidus Snake, and Solid Snake, plus a collection of international trailers of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. This pre-order package also contains an insert with a download code and special instructions for accessing the Metal Gear Online beta test when it goes live in late April. This special pre-order package will only be available while supplies last.

when you guys pick up your copies of MGS4 on the 360 will you grab me a copy of Bioshock for PS3?

thanks.

That's pretty funny.

I bet it doesn't take as long to switch out that many discs as it takes for the intial 12 hr install on PS3 .

If the game truely does take up the entire Blu-ray disc then that pic isn't too far off. As absurd as it is the game would have to be on about 10 dvd's and that's assuming they don't add things in to make it the director's cut, which you know they will add stuff.

SUre you can compress but that's a lot of compressing to do.

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" And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason." Isaac Asimov

Which means either a lot more areas to explore or a whole lot of dialog. I think it's all filled with dialog. I swear, the dialog in these MGS games is like everyone is giving an Illiad style monologue.

If the game truely does take up the entire Blu-ray disc then that pic isn't too far off. As absurd as it is the game would have to be on about 10 dvd's and that's assuming they don't add things in to make it the director's cut, which you know they will add stuff.

SUre you can compress but that's a lot of compressing to do.

You do realize that the 360 supports dual-layer discs, right? That's 9.5GB each right there, give or take.

And basically devs have said in the past that their games have no compression at all, along with duplication of data on the disc to help with loading times, so it could very well fit onto the 360 with a bit of work.

Assuming the game isn't 15 hours of cut-scenes, anyway.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

If the game truely does take up the entire Blu-ray disc then that pic isn't too far off. As absurd as it is the game would have to be on about 10 dvd's and that's assuming they don't add things in to make it the director's cut, which you know they will add stuff.

SUre you can compress but that's a lot of compressing to do.

You do realize that the 360 supports dual-layer discs, right? That's 9.5GB each right there, give or take.

Dual layer is actually 9.0 GB total (4.5 GB per layer). What you are likely referring to are DVD-18s- Dual Layer on each side and is a bitch to manufacture and is prone to player incompatibilities.

Which means either a lot more areas to explore or a whole lot of dialog. I think it's all filled with dialog. I swear, the dialog in these MGS games is like everyone is giving an Illiad style monologue.

Well, that and high resolution textures of Snake grabbing the package of nearby statues, high resolution wank magazines, and high quality audio of Otakon bugging me every 10 seconds to ask about love on the battlefield. I want to love this game, it looks phenominal. I already know I'm gonna buy it. Why do I torture myself? Oh well, at least it is the last time.

But really, while it's true MS will be ponying up truckloads of money for MGS to go multiplatform, Sony will pony up even more to make sure it doesn't. Remember, this is real competition here.

However, in the end what matters is sales. If sales are poor for the PS3 MGS4, we'll see a 360 version 6 months down the line. However, it's very likely that it'll sell really well and that Sony will pay through the nose to keep MGS4 on the PS3, but Konami isn't stupid, they'll make sure there's a clause in any contract they sign that allows them to go multiplatform if a certain level of sales isn't reached. This is probably why Sony made a MGS4 bundle in the first place.

And don't start with the fanboy crap either. It's just good business sense to pay craploads of money to keep a high profile game exclusive to your system, especially when your system needs a lot more high profile games to help promote it.

Eh, just look at the GTA series- Sony only paid for six month exclusivity. Timed exclusives are very effective- it's relatively rare for a port six or so months later to sell comparably to what the original release did (Even GTA, which did excellent by any standard on Xbox, only sold about 10-20% of what the PS2 versions did). Gaming is very focused on the latest and greatest and it's hard for a lot of gamers to get really excited about a game that came out on another system six or more months ago (ie an eternity in the video game world).

EDIT- Ah, I just clicked on the second page of the thread and see Dante said basically the same thing.

GTA3 PS2 exclusive was longer than 6 mo, KG. GTA3:SA was shorter, but GTA3 is what fired up the PS2 Money Mill.

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"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners." - Johnny Carson

GTA3 PS2 exclusive was longer than 6 mo, KG. GTA3:SA was shorter, but GTA3 is what fired up the PS2 Money Mill.

Yeah, I just didn't want to get into the complicated history since, as you say, they didn't even start paying for exclusivity until after GTA3 became a phenomenon. SA wasn't shorter than six months though- released October 2004 on PS2 and June 2005 on Xbox.

GTA3 PS2 exclusive was longer than 6 mo, KG. GTA3:SA was shorter, but GTA3 is what fired up the PS2 Money Mill.

Yeah, I just didn't want to get into the complicated history since, as you say, they didn't even start paying for exclusivity until after GTA3 became a phenomenon. SA wasn't shorter than six months though- released October 2004 on PS2 and June 2005 on Xbox.

To clarify: "shorter" is context sensitive. I meant the wait for SA to hit the xbox was shorter than the wait for GTA3... especially since they both lauched on the same date on the Xbox.

People didn't think DMC would make it to the 360; I don't see how, given Konami's prior willingness to work with MS, that Sony may end up only holding an exclusivity to this game for a time period.

Assassin's Creed was exclusive too, wasn't it?

[edit] I also think it's entirely possible that this game will actually be exclusive. It would be a coup for MS to get a title that is bundled with the competitor.

« Last Edit: March 04, 2008, 03:32:01 PM by Purge »

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"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners." - Johnny Carson

AC was never exclusive. The story goes that Ubi was fully willing to go exclusive, along with Take 2 and GTA4, and the exclusivity proposal was basically sitting on Kuturagi's desk for six months or so with zero action. In the meantime, as a gesture of good faith while waiting, Ubi only promoted the PS3 version (despite an initial announcment of Project Assassin at X05). However Kuturagi waited too long on both proposals, either through plaiin laziness or because he thought that there was no need for Sony to pay for exclusives, so both Ubi and Take 2 said screw it and went officially multiplatform (with MS then throwing some super-fat cash Take 2's way for GTA4 downloadable content).

Quote from: Purge

To clarify: "shorter" is context sensitive. I meant the wait for SA to hit the xbox was shorter than the wait for GTA3... especially since they both lauched on the same date on the Xbox.

You're thinking of the GTA3/Vice City double pack which was released in October 2003. GTA:SA was a separate release all by it's lonesome.

You're right (as I am now reminded). A few of my friends were ueber-hyped and we were on the ex-box, but since I wasn't crazy about the game (even though the freedom was something I enjoyed) they weren't landmark events for me.

As to the AC thing, I knew that; I was referring to the fact that Sony happily took the publicity they didn't pay for.

« Last Edit: March 04, 2008, 03:46:14 PM by Purge »

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"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners." - Johnny Carson